Minister Calls For Collective Effort To Overcome Issues With Education

The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Stephen Yakubu, has stated that it is time for stakeholders, including teachers, government figures, and parents, to work together to put novel ideas into practice in order to stop the region’s declining educational standards.

Despite 90% of trained teachers working in public schools in the area, he lamented the persistent drop in student and pupil performance over the years in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West African Senior High School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

“All the problems we have here cut across the entire country but other regions are doing well, and we are not, which I don’t understand. Everything boils down to management, so we need to do things differently to achieve different results,” he pointed out.

Mr. Yakubu delivered these statements at the Bolgatanga Regional Education Review conference, which was sponsored by the Regional Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

It was done to set up a forum for the stakeholders to discuss ways to improve the region’s underwhelming student and pupil performance.

According to data from the GES, performance in the BECE and WASSCE has declined over time, particularly in core disciplines like mathematics, English language, integrated science, and social studies.

Mathematical scores dropped from 54.4% in 2019 to 52.0% in 2021 in the region, while English scores dropped from 52.9% to 48.6%, Integrated Science scores dropped from 55.3% to 50.2% in 2021, and Social Studies scores dropped from 52.8% to 46.9% in the same period.

Moreover, Mr. Yakubu clarified that a number of reasons, such as a lack of infrastructure, poor administration, and a poor attitude on the part of some teachers, have a negative impact on performance and he urged everyone to work together to alter the narrative in order to improve livelihoods and eliminate poverty.

In light of this, he pleaded with lawmakers to use the portion of the Common Fund designated for education to support government efforts to deliver high-quality education through building infrastructure for underserved schools.

Furthermore, he advised teachers and school administrators to come up with strategies for giving pupils who struggled in particular academic areas extra attention.